`Slow Starter` Baines Finishes April At .356

May 01, 1985|By Mike Kiley, Chicago Tribune.

BALTIMORE — Harold Baines has squelched his reputation for starting slow. He ended April with a .356 average and will enter May with a 14-game hitting streak, second-longest in the American League in 1985. Pat Tabler`s 15-game stretch ended Monday.

Baines roared out of April with a three-hit game Tuesday night at Baltimore.

-- Baltimore`s Sammy Stewart gained his fourth save Tuesday night by getting Scott Fletcher on a called third strike with a pair of Sox on base. Stewart noticed the pitcher who preceded him--Tippy Martinez--wasn`t getting a low-strike call from the home-plate umpire. ``So I kept the ball down against Fletcher,`` Stewart said.

-- Pitcher Al Jones` sore elbow might not be healed in time to return to the Sox by May 8, the date he is eligible to come off the 15-day disabled list.

Manager Tony LaRussa might not have to decide for three more weeks how he has to trim the roster to clear a spot for the right-handed reliever.

``I prefer to have two left-handed pitchers in the bullpen,`` LaRussa said, ``but I may have to cut back to one when Jones is ready. Too early for me to tell now.``

Lefty Bob Fallon was added to the bullpen when Jones went on the DL.

-- LaRussa doesn`t plan to pitch anyone from the major-league roster in Thursday night`s exhibition at Buffalo against the Sox`s Triple-A affiliate.

``Not unless Britt Burns pitches a complete game Wednesday night and someone needs some work because of it,`` LaRussa said.

Two minor-league pitchers are scheduled to pitch for the big-league team: left-hander Rich DeVincenzo and right-hander Pedro Guzman.

-- LaRussa knows the Orioles, with Lee Lacy still on the disabled list, are having problems finding the right people to bat 1-2 in the lineup ahead of Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. Manager Joe Altobelli has juggled the 1-2 spots frequently with the hope something will click. But LaRussa shied away from emphasizing the problem.

``One of two things can happen,`` he said. ``Dan Ford and Rich Dauer (who batted 1-2 in Tuesday`s game) will be so wound up they`ll do well, or it can work for us if the psych job works against them--just as it did on the weekend with the Yankees, who were trying to hit the ball too hard to save Yogi Berra that it hurt them.`` As it turned out, Ford and Dauer each had two hits Tuesday night and Dauer drove in three runs.

-- Baltimore has been thinking about trading for Seattle second baseman Jack Perconte and making him the leadoff man. The Mariners are no longer asking for pitcher Storm Davis, so Baltimore has resumed talks about Perconte, who`s from Joliet. Seattle is now looking at Stewart and fellow right-hander Dennis Martinez as possible acquisitions. But the way Stewart`s going, he might not be available.